Forum Journal & Forum Focus

A Long-Range Vision for Cities, and for Preservation

I am honored to accept invitations
from the National Trust
because those of us involved
in New Urbanism owe you
greatly in our own endeavors.
We are certainly in your debt,
not only as an allied institution,
but -- and I want to
emphasize this -- in what
preservationists bring to communities.
Whenever we come
to help a town or city that
needs expansion or revitalization,
there is a substantial
public process with participants
who have a lot to say. In
fact, they’re almost always the
determinants of whether the
plan goes forward well. And
the vast majority of those who
help are preservationists.

When we arrive to work
with a city, I am the least
expert person. Everybody else
knows more about the city
than we do. It’s a very peculiar
situation, to come from the
outside as an advisor. Study
as you might, take advice as
much as you might, you’re
never as expert as those who
live in the city. What emerges
in these public processes, are
people who have been thinking
deeply about what is to be
done. And ironically, they also
think how impossible it is to
get things done, because they
know too much. They know
the details.

So what can I contribute
when I come into a place
where everyone else is an
expert? Rather than pursuing
expertise in the sense of
becoming like the citizens, I’ve
found that I can contribute
two things that are not normally
engaged in their mindset:
a conception of time and a
conception of scale.

Time: The Need for a Long-Range View

After many years of being an
architect and an urbanist, I’ve
finally figured out the difference
between the two disciplines.
The first conception
was to think that for an urbanist,
the issues are more complicated
because the scale
involved is larger. It’s architecture
writ large. In fact, I have
found that not to be the case.
There are, after all, some very,
very large architectural projects.
There are huge housing
schemes being laid out at one
time designed by a single
hand. There are enormous
campuses, like the Getty, and
huge shopping malls. It is
said that they are urbanism,
but the ones designed by a single
architect are, in fact, simply
large architectural projects.

The categorical difference
between urbanism and
architecture is the factor of
time. Regardless of how large
an architectural project is, the
scope of its creation -- from
design to construction to
implementation in every
sense -- is between two and
five years. You must convince
people, you must get it done,
and probably you must photograph
it before it changes in
some way, within two to five
years. The reality of the
market, the budget, and the
client are all constrained by
that short time frame.

The reality of urbanism is
between 20 and 100 years.
There is very little that is
possible unless we take the
long-range view. It is very difficult
to get anything done
unless you see past the present.

Let me give you two
examples: Florida’s Seaside
and Cleveland, where we meet
today.

When we first arrived at
the Florida Panhandle in
1980, the only value of that
shoreline was the strip on the
beach, which was sold as
townhouses and condominiums.
Nothing behind it was
valuable. The only things
that were on the market at
the time were relatively cheap
condominiums selling “ocean
view.” That was the only
reality in 1980.

Now, because Robert
Davis, our client, owned land
in depth, he had to make
all the land valuable, not just
the frontal strip, we had to
conceive of a plan that the
site as a whole was not just
an attachment to the beach.
There had to be other things
that made it worthwhile to
live at Seaside.

In 1980 no market analysis
would tell you that such a
thing was possible. And it was
even more difficult to conceive
of the plan as a town.
How can you even think of
anything other than marketing
condos on the beach? And
yet when we designed Seaside,
we reserved a site for a rather
large chapel; we reserved a site
for an elementary school; we
reserved sites for a clubhouse
and a concert hall; we reserved
many sites for a downtown of
four-story mixed-use buildings
with shops on the first floor,
living above; we even reserved
sites for a cemetery as well
as houses. Over time they all
became real. Over time the
citizens moved in. They
became proud of their community.
They wished to improve
their quality of life. They
wished to ornament their
lives. And they themselves
raised the money to build a
beautiful chapel. They’re now
raising $10 million to build the
concert hall. And they lobbied
to bring in their public school.

Now, this happened
because we knew that over
time everything is possible.
There is nothing unusual
about time as a factor. Look at
the people who laid out cities
like Cleveland. Look at the
early lithographs of Cleveland,
200 years ago, 150 years ago.
You see something akin to a
shanty town. You see shacks
without windows. You see pigs
in the street. You see mud in
their streets. There was no sewer. And yet we know very
well that, although the buildings
were akin to shanties, the
initial conception was that it
was to become a city. The road
grid was laid out; the widths
were large. And duly, 100 years
later came the infrastructure
that permitted the large and
glorious buildings that you
now have in Cleveland. This
happened because they took
time into account. This is the
kind of vision that permits
cities to occur. Vision is, in
fact, possible only when you
take time into account.

Another reason that
time, as an ingredient is so
important: People are experts
in what cannot happen. They
will tell you that the crucial
building, which stops the project,
is “owned by a misanthrope
living in Florida.” And
my response is, is there any
evidence that he’s immortal?
Because if there isn’t, then we
can go ahead and plan for the
generational transition. This
happens even more often with
entrenched regulators, such as
zoning administrators or public
works chiefs.

And then a curious thing
happens when you see past
the people who are preventing
things: For the first time,
a vision is permitted to be created
that is of sufficient standing,
of sufficient greatness, that
these very same people who
said “no” before, actually join.
They’ll say, “Oh, so that’s what
you mean to do. That’s interesting!
Well, I guess I’ll sell my
building.” Just to be permitted
to think about the future is the
crucial thing.

Why Preservation Needs to Look Forward

And how does this affect
preservation? I believe that
there’s a problem with the
American preservation movement
that was present at its
birth. It was conceived very
late -- about 150 years later
than the Society for the
Preservation of Ancient Buildings
in England. Why so late?
Because the ethos of America used to be forward looking.
We always knew that the
future was to be better than
the present; that the present
was better than the past. And
so willingly and uncritically
we demolished and demolished
in order to build places
that were better and better.
Remember the shantytown
that became Cleveland! And
the evidence really was that
places do get better.

If you look at lithographs
and photographs of Cleveland,
first with shacks that then
became brick houses, which
then became glorious mansions,
and then became the
standard American five-tosix-
story downtown, and then
became glorious 1930s stone
skyscrapers.

This rise to greatness was
built on the demolition of
the prior stage. There was
no preservation movement
because it was understood that
there was a fair exchange
value. It was understood that
that which would be acquired
would be at least as good as
that which was taken away.

But in the 1950s and in
the 1960s the evidence grew
that this was no longer the
case. I believe the key event
was the demolition of Penn
Station and its replacement by
that aberration, that disgusting
building. That was the last
straw. And we as a culture concluded
that we were trading
downwards. And so we came
to believe that we must preserve
not only that which is of
historic value, but anything
that exists, knowing that it is
better than that which will
replace it.

That’s been my own
experience with the preservation
movement. I have seen
single buildings of no value,
architectural or historical,
being fought for by preservationists
because the proposed
replacement is some kind of
disgusting national chain
drugstore.

Ultimately, in the very
long run, thinking about time
again, there will be less and
less for us to preserve. Right
now we’re engaging in the
debate about Levittown. We’re
engaged in a debate on preserving
the earliest McDonald’s.
I think those are of value.
I think that the earliest glassand-
steel office buildings are of
value. But as you move into
the ’60s and the ’70s, I guarantee
you, there are no lenses
so rosy that they will actually
permit us to look at those
McMansions and say that they
are worth defending.

We are creating places
that are not worth preserving
under any circumstances. And
as you look backwards, it is just as important that you look
forward. If not you, who? Who
else is, in fact, supervising the
quality of what is being built?
Who has the knowledge? Who
has the goodwill? Who has the
vast and mature organization
to look over that which is
being built but the National
Trust?

Scale: The Need for a Regional View

It is crucial that preservationists
begin to understand the
protocols that are creating the
present built environment,
which is largely suburbia, and
see the competitive disadvantage
cities are in. Of course,
the cities are more beautiful.
Look at the glory of these
buildings in Cleveland. Look
at where the cultural institutions
are located. Look at the
prices of downtown real estate.
Look at the advantage of existing
infrastructure and the
mature street trees and parks.
Look at the tax breaks that are
available. But then, why is
development occurring out in
open lands at a much faster
rate than redevelopment in
the city? Why are they building
thousands of houses for
every unit that is built downtown?
Why does a shopkeeper
willingly pay 10 times as much
to be in a shopping mall than
in a storefront downtown?

Preservationists, who want
cities to be preserved as vitally
functioning places, must
understand the scale of the
region and the competitive
relationship between the city
and the suburbs. Otherwise
they will not understand why
Euclid Avenue in Cleveland is
still relatively empty, despite
the excellence of the architecture
and all the efforts to redevelop
it. It is not that there is
anything intrinsically wrong
with Euclid Avenue; it is just
that it extrinsically relates to
what else is happening in the
region.

Until the recent recession,
nearly a million houses
were built each year in this
country in the greenfields. It
is very, very difficult to stop
this. We know it truly cannot
be stopped because there is
growth in the population
and wealth that makes the
generations no longer share
households. Families, who
would have lived together,
now live apart. So there’s a
tremendous multiplication of
households, and statistically
some regions must continue
losing greenfields.

I don’t think anybody
here should or can stop this
constant exchange. Exchange
is life. The problem that we
have in suburbia is that the
exchange value is downwards.
Even the rawest potato field
is more desirable than a
strip shopping center. It’s a
downward trade despite the
fact that the shops in that
strip shopping center must be
provided somewhere. And
preservationists, who have
come to learn, painfully, about
exchange value in buildings of
the past, cannot fail to engage
that issue of exchange value in
the open space of the present.

Why Preservation Needs New Allies

To conclude, I would like to
make a proposition. This
organization is necessarily elsewhere,
but it is constrained
by its mission. You should not
diffuse yourself more widely.
You should concentrate on
your job, but you do need an
allied organization that will
engage the preservation of the
countryside and the building
a future worth preserving.

Now, most environmental
organizations have an ethos
different from yours in the
sense that many of them --
and I’m not criticizing them
because they are very effective
-- are staffed by overgrown
and not particularly well-behaved
kids. Their effectiveness
is their misbehavior. But
there is one organization that
is actually staffed by steady-eyed
adults, and that’s the
Nature Conservancy. And
they also have the tremendous
advantage that they look upon
the landscape as shared by
human habitation. They do
not share the cataclysmic definition
-- that nature is only
wilderness and humans are
always intruders.

Now, as I said, do not diffuse
yourself. You do not need
to take on environmental
problems. Nor do you need
to take on the building of the
new communities; the Nature
Conservancy and the New
Urbanists are engaged in these
endeavors. But we do desperately
need each other for
cross-education and to back
each other in the many, many
campaigns that must be
fought, both locally and at a
national level.

I also wonder whether at
some point, to stimulate
debate, you should consider a
change of your name as a way
to bring up the fundamental
issue of the future. Is the
National Trust for Historic
Preservation the future? Is
“historic” the correct word? Is
this not limiting?

Now, you will probably
decide not to alter your name.
But to engage in a debate
about fundamental issues by
reconsidering that name and
seeing where that takes you
would be healthy. And nothing
gives more vitality to an
organization than the true
exchange of ideas, both by
internal debate and by external
association with the two
organizations I’ve proposed.

I’m proposing to you that
the Congress of the New
Urbanism owes you a lot, and
I think we can offer a lot. I
think that the Nature Conservancy
would also be equally
invigorating as an ally.

The Preservation Leadership Forum of the National Trust for Historic Preservation is a network of preservation leaders — professionals, students, volunteers, activists, experts — who share the latest ideas, information, and advice, and have access to in-depth preservation resources and training.